Dawn
by silverhelix428
Summary: What if the Bishops hadn't found Peter when he took Nathan to the hospital after Kirby Plaza? What if he was found by a certain blonde file clerk who felt compelled to help the terrified stranger? AU Pemma, S2. TEMPORARY HIATUS
1. Shock

**Title-** Dawn  
**Author-** Victoria  
**Rating-** T (might go higher, probably won't)  
**Summary-** What if the Bishops hadn't found Peter when he took Nathan to the hospital after Kirby Plaza? What if he was found by a certain blonde file clerk who felt compelled to help the terrified stranger? AU Pemma, S2.

**A/N-** Everybody, add Raising Lazarus to your Author Alert. It's a joint account for a couple of collaborations my cousin and ParaCaerOuVoar are doing, and from the little snippets I've read, they're gonna be fantastic. The reason I mention it is because one of them is another AU Pemma fic set around this same time in S2.

* * *

1. Shock

_"I can tell, she's raising hell to give to me. But she got me warm, so please don't get me rescued..."  
-Jack's Mannequin, "Rescued" _

_

* * *

_

_"You gotta let me go, Nathan!" Peter yelled, even as he clung to his brother's shoulders, desperate for anything to keep him grounded just long enough... Pain rippled through him as he struggled to prevent the explosion inside him. Nuclear fire burned through his body, causing him unbelievable agony and it was only due to Claire that he wasn't a charred corpse falling away through Nathan's hands already. The cold air of the higher atmosphere whipped across his skin, cooling him, but it would never be enough..._

_Nathan would not let him go. "You go, I go!" he replied over the roar of the wind._

_"No! I'll be okay! You can fly, I can't!"_

_"What do you mean?" Nathan cried._

_Peter bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood as another lash of fire seared through him and the side of his brother's face began to crinkle and burn from proximity to his raging heat. Peter was too small for this, too small a person to contain all this fire and glory... "It's taking everything in me, all my power not to explode!" he replied. "Lemme go!" Seeing Nathan's skin continuing to pucker, he shoved hard against Nathan's chest to push himself away and then he was free-falling... _

_Screaming at the top of his lungs as the nuclear reaction in his chest built to an unbearable power, he tumbled through the sky. And then..._

Light.

***************

He nearly stumbled to his knees as he landed heavily outside the emergency room doors; his brother's unconscious body was a dead weight intent on dragging him to the pavement. But he was able- barely- to keep his footing and stagger into the hospital. Calling for help, he deposited Nathan on a gurney and turned him over to the care of a bevy of nurses and at least two doctors who swarmed over to them. "Keep him alive, okay!" he shouted frantically after them. "Do whatever it takes!"

As they disappeared behind the doors in the direction of the emergency care facilities, a rush of cold swept over him. He couldn't leave Nathan alone now, he just couldn't! He wouldn't be any help to his brother, but there was no way he was going to be far away. Grabbing a blanket from the top of a pile stacked neatly on a shelf, he wrapped it around his shoulders, trying to ward off the chills that were running through him.

Without really thinking about it, he slipped into invisibility, hurrying away in the direction he had seen them taking Nathan.

The horror of what he had done settled in his chest like granite, and he felt his knees shaking. For a moment, he thought he might actually collapse, but somehow he kept staggering forward, wandering deeper into the hospital. Oh god, what had he done? He could only keep pressing forward, praying Nathan would be alright, hoping to find where they'd taken him. The coldness that seemed to have seeped right down into his bones refused to go away, and he could feel himself shaking in full-body-wracking tremors. A detached, clinical part of his mind told him he was in shock. The rest of him didn't care.

Eventually, he realized that he was completely lost. He'd spent some time around Mercy Heights when he was getting his nursing degree, but he'd never taken the time to become familiar with the layout of the building. It was all just too much, and he fell through the first open door he could find, losing the invisibility as he did so.

He found himself in what appeared to be a records room of some kind. Unable to really process any more than the immediate present, he stumbled into the corner, away from the door and the window. Curling himself up into a tight little ball, he gave in to the shaking and tried to shut out the world.

***************

Emma Coolidge liked to consider herself to be a very calm, collected woman. Very little perturbed her, and she prided herself on her ability to be rational under stress. But she was not at all prepared for what was waiting in the file room when she returned from her tea-finding mission. A man about her age sat curled up in the corner, wrapped up in a white blanket and rocking back and forth slightly. He was shaking visibly, and his eyes looked unfocused.

Briefly, Emma debated calling for help. After a short struggle with herself, however, she decided to try to handle it on her own first.

When she knelt down in front of him, the man barely registered her presence. "Hey," she said, "Are you alright?" Stupid question, she knew. He wouldn't look like that if he were. But at the sound of her voice, his eyes flickered with life and he appeared to acknowledge her. "Can you tell me your name?" she asked.

She saw his mouth move, but from the way his face was angled, she found herself unable to read his lips. "I have a hearing loss," she said, hating the words. "Can you say that again?"

At last, he looked up at her, and Emma was caught off-guard by the force of his gaze. His dark eyes were, in a word, haunted. She had rarely seen anyone so distraught.

"My name's Peter," he said. Then he dropped his face away from her again.

"Alright Peter, I'm Emma," she introduced herself. "Here, let's get you up off the floor." She took hold of his elbow and all but pulled him to his feet. He offered no resistance, but did little to help her, either. As he unfurled from his near-fetal position, she realized for the first time that his clothes were blackened and partially ripped, as though he'd been in a fire. That, she guessed, was the key to why he was in this state.

There was a second chair besides hers in the file room, and she quickly guided him over to it and eased him into it, fearful that his legs might give out. She then pulled her chair over so that she was sitting in front of him. Very gently, so as not to alarm him, she took his hand in hers and pressed her fingertips to his wrist, checking his pulse. It was rapid and weak, like a bird's heartbeat beneath her fingers. She sighed.

"You're in shock," Emma told him bluntly. "Since you don't seem to be bleeding, it's psychological. What's happened to you?"

Once again, his eyes came up to meet hers, anguish written all across his face. "Nathan," he mumbled. "My brother Nathan, it... I need to find him. I need to make sure he's okay."

When he made to stand up, she pressed a hand to his shoulder to force him back into the seat. He gave in with little resistance. "He'll be alright," Emma said, though she wasn't really sure of that at all. It was better to help him through this right now and worry about the psychological scars later. Scanning through what she knew about treatment for psychological shock, Emma recalled that chamomile was supposed to be a good natural remedy if no other options were available. Glancing down at the mug of tea she still held, she sighed, and handed it to him. "Here," she said. "Drink this."

Mechanically, he raised the cup to his lips and swallowed. When he'd finished, she took the mug from him and set it aside. Emma noticed that his hands were steadier, but he still refused to hold her gaze for more than a second at a time. Hesitantly, she placed a hand delicately against his cheek, simultaneously giving the stunned man a comforting caress and bringing his head up so that he would look at her. "Peter," she said gently, "tell me what happened to you."

He burst into tears.

* * *

**So, what do you think? Essentially, this is going to take a second look at season two, plus the four intervening months between the seasons. Review and give opinions- good or bad. I'm a little shaky on the final scene, but after having re-written it six times I just don't think it's going to get any better.**


	2. Snapping Out of It

**A/N: **Hehe, what is it with me and having the male lead in tears by the end of the first chapter? Peter in this fic, Jess in IIWII... I think it's probably a sign of something really messed up in my psyche. Not, of course, that there's anything wrong with a guy crying and the strong woman in his life fixing it, but the fact that it's becoming a pattern in my writing is telling... Maybe I should see a shrink.

And just so we're clear, Emma does NOT know about abilities yet, as the content of the chapter will make clear. However, the synesthesia aspect of her ability HAS begun to manifest, so she's seeing the colors.

* * *

2. Snapping Out of It

_"And the worst part is, before it gets any better we're headed for a cliff, and in the freefall I will realize that I'm better off when I hit the bottom."  
-Paramore, "Turn It Off"_

* * *

Emma stared in complete shock as the man before her broke down in helpless tears. This was something she wasn't sure how to deal with. After the briefest debate with herself, she hesitantly put an arm around Peter's shoulder in a gesture of comfort. His head fell forward onto her shoulder and he shook silently as he cried. Gently, Emma rubbed small circles on his back and supported him.

Some minutes later, he calmed, and immediately pulled back from her. As he wiped at his damp eyes with ash-streaked hands, he looked at her apologetically. "Sorry," he mumbled, clearly embarrassed and far more lucid than he had been before his crying jag. "I didn't mean to--"

"It's fine," she assured him. "You've been through something awful, haven't you? Is there someone I can contact?"

Peter hesitated. "I'll call my niece. But, my brother, I have to find him. I brought him in a little while ago, and I was going to find him but I... got lost." If it were possible, he looked even more abashed.

Emma chewed her lip thoughtfully, then made the decision. "What's your brother's name?" she asked.

"Nathan Petrelli."

She stared at him, surprised. "The district attorney?"

"Congressman now," Peter said, and for a moment she saw the flash of pride on his face as he said it. But then his expression shut down again. "That is, if he... survives." He stumbled over the words, and Emma saw his eyes beginning to brighten again.

"Hey, hey," she assured him, putting a hand on his arm placatingly. "I'm sure he'll be alright. Let me see what we've got in the system on your brother." She rolled her chair back from him and turning to the computer, quickly searched the hospital's database. In seconds, she had the information she was looking for. "He's in surgery," Emma informed him. "That's all it says." Peter's face was anguished. She cast around for a topic to distract him from his brother's dubious future. "What happened?" she eventually asked.

Looking skeptical, he scoffed. "You wouldn't believe me," he said.

Emma simply looked at him, waiting. After holding her gaze stoically for several long moments, he sighed. And then the whole story came spilling out, a tale of time-travelers and invincible cheerleaders who needed to be rescued, of serial killers and radioactive men, of fire and love and death and betrayal and family and redemption. For almost half an hour straight he talked, staring over her shoulder rather than meet her eyes and see the growing disbelief that she couldn't eradicate from her face no matter how much she wanted to.

When he finished his description of the final moments on Kirby Plaza, she sat back, shaking her head. Parts of the story fit: she remembered reading something in the paper a few weeks back about Nathan Petrelli's suicidal baby brother; she had read the early work of Chandra Suresh and understood how a few of his first theories could lead to imagining the kind of evolution Peter was talking about, but... there was no way! Was there? "That's crazy," she said quietly.

He held her gaze at last. "Is it?" he asked. And then he disappeared. She stared at the place where he had been; suddenly he shimmered back into existence. "That's... I would show you others, but I can't trust... I don't want to--"

"Lose control again," she breathed, completing the thought.

He nodded.

"This is... wow," Emma said. Her world was suddenly spinning on an entirely new axis, but somehow it all just... fit. It made sense, even though it didn't. She knew that later she would freak out once she'd had time to process, but for now she just felt like she was seeing the world clearly for the first time. She had always secretly suspected that there was more to the world than was commonly known, and now she knew what it was.

Peter, however, was looking a little hysterical. "I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this," he said, and his shoulders shook in a disbelieving, unhappy burst of laughter.

"Don't worry," she assured him. "I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."

He stared at her. "You know, if it weren't for Nate, I'd have killed you," he said, and he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to her. "You and everybody else in this city. But you're being so _nice_ to me...?"

And that was the point that Emma got fed up. She understood his shock and his guilt over hurting someone he loved better than he could imagine, but there was a difference between regret over what had happened to his brother and self-flogging over something that _didn't_ happen. "Peter, it wasn't your fault," she said firmly, forcing him to meet her fierce gaze through sheer force of will. "From what you told me, it wasn't your fault. Don't hate yourself for something that didn't happen."

Peter's eyes were wide in his pale face, and he suddenly looked less like a broken man and more like a frightened child. She was possessed by a powerful urge to embrace him, to comfort him in any way she could. But he nodded, looking more stable than he had from the first moment she'd found him. "Okay," he said.

Emma could see that he would be alright. He was starting to come out of his stunned, terrified state and think rationally again. "Is there someone you can call?" she asked. "Your family?"

"I should call Claire," he said, nodding to himself. "She needs to know we're okay, that we... survived."

"Alright then," she said. "Come on." She put a hand on his elbow, surreptitiously helping him as he rose to his feet. Then she led him out of her phone-less office to find a place where he could contact his family.

***************

Once Peter had made his call, she took him back to the file room and instructed him firmly to stay put while she went in search of a change of clothes for him. It didn't seem right to leave him in his conspicuously burned attire. Once she'd found a clean white T-shirt and a pair of black pants that she might or might not have "borrowed" from the paramedics' locker room, she returned to her office to find Peter sitting exactly where she'd left him, studying his hands. She handed him the clean outfit and pointed him down the hallway to a restroom where he could change.

After he left, she began wondering about radiation poisoning. He wasn't radioactive at the moment (she hoped), but mightn't his clothes have residual radiation clinging to them?

Then the hilarity of her own thought process struck her and she giggled quietly. Two hours ago, she'd never have even thought such things. And the Peter Petrelli came stumbling into her life and suddenly everything was different. Seemingly ordinary people all over the planet had superpowers. She had seen evidence with her own eyes. It was inconceivable. Somehow, though, it was true. It was exciting, actually. It gave the world a sense of mystery.

She decided not to be concerned about the radiation. If it became a problem, she would deal with it then. For the time being, it wasn't the most pressing issue.

At that moment, Peter returned, freshly dressed in the clothes she had brought him. Emma took the opportunity to really study him for the first time, and was surprised to realize that he was incredibly handsome. He was thin, but the tight-fitting T-shirt didn't leave much to the imagination, revealing a well-defined chest. His raven hair was disheveled and falling in his eyes, but his face was open and honest and his coffee-colored eyes were the most expressive she'd ever seen.

"I told Claire to meet me here," he said. "You don't mind if I stay, do you?"

Emma shook her head. "It's fine. Stay as long as you need."

He smiled his thanks, and she was pleased to note that it looked genuine. There were still tight lines of worry in his face and in the way he held himself, but some of the numb tension that had been filling him since she'd first seen him had drained away. Yes, she decided: Peter would be fine.

***************

Peter was fast asleep in the extra chair when a blonde teenager came pelting into the room. She stopped short at the sight of the unconscious man. "Oh my god," she said, and Emma suspected that it had come out as a shocked whisper.

"I don't know if you should wake him," she said softly.

The girl looked at her, seeming to notice Emma's presence for the first time. Simultaneously, Emma could see the unconscious shock on the girl's face when the telltale burr in her voice betrayed her disability. It annoyed her, but it was an old irritation and didn't really stir any resentment towards her specifically.

"Who are you?" the girl asked.

"I'm Emma Coolidge. Peter hid in here. Are you Claire?"

Looking pleased, she nodded. "He told you about me?"

"He told me a lot of things," Emma said. Claire suddenly looked scared in an entirely different way than Peter had earlier. Emma hurried to reassure her. "Don't worry, I don't plan on telling anyone about what you can do. When I found him, he was terrified. He needed someone to talk to. He told me everything."

Claire looked at her in some surprise. "Thank you for taking care of him." She tried and failed to make her face blank. "How's my fa-- Nathan?"

Once she'd managed to sort out the confusion that Claire's sudden change of wording had caused, Emma came to the conclusion that this girl was in fact Nathan Petrelli's illegitimate daughter. If Peter's tale hadn't convinced her that the Petrelli family was seriously dysfunctional, this definitely would have. "He's in surgery," Emma informed her. "I don't know more than that."

"Okay," Claire said. "Can I wait here with him until we get some news? Then I can wake him..."

Emma agreed immediately. The situation could not have been more bizarre, with one brand-new acquaintance unconscious in her chair and a virtual stranger sitting on the floor next to him. It was the most time she'd spent in the company of anyone besides her family in a very long time, but she was surprised to find that she didn't mind. These people were struggling to survive in a dangerous world she'd only just discovered, and it was the very least she could do to help them.

Some two hours later, a nurse appeared to announce that Nathan was out of surgery and stable, but they would not be allowed to visit him until the next day at the earliest. Peter looked infinitely relieved, and Claire's face was unreadable.

"I guess I should... go home?" Peter said uncertainly, a question in his voice. Emma could understand why. When tragedy struck, going back to your home seemed almost unconscionable. It was surreal in its mundanity. Claire placed a comforting hand on his arm and he nodded. "Yeah. I need to go home." Casting a look at Emma, he smiled. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "For everything."

"It's fine," she assured him. "You don't have to thank me."

"Yes I do," he said firmly.

Claire chose that moment to interrupt, saying, "We should get going. Dad and I can give you a lift back to your apartment."

"Noah's here?" he asked.

She nodded. "He's been downstairs getting his arm put in a cast. The EMTs got him a splint and a sling, but he figured since we were going to be here for awhile he should get it properly taken care of while he had the chance."

Peter sighed, and Emma again caught a glimpse of pain in his face at some memory or thought. She again felt the instinct to reassure him and protect him, but before she could say anything, he had given her a nod and a hasty goodbye, and these two exceedingly strange people were gone from the file room.

* * *

**Next time:**

**Peter visits Nathan in the hospital. There isn't much conversation.  
Emma visits Peter visiting Nathan. There is a great deal more conversation.**

**Reviews make the world go 'round! **


	3. Surreal

**A/N:** Sorry, I know I promised that Peter would get back to the hospital in this chap, but the scene that makes up most of it sort of hijacked my brain, and I trust my muse, despite her fickle disposition. (I've decided to name her Varana as a result)

I love this fic. I really, seriously do. I've got all these brilliant ideas for where it's going, and all this superfantastic stuff that's going to happen ever-so-slightly differently in every storyline as a result of Emma being awesome and Elle having epic!fail (is it just me, or is she a really crappy agent, despite what Bennet says in this chapter?).

And you know what? I'm giving you a kick-ass playlist with the songs I'm listing at the start of each chapter. So if nothing else, you get that out of reading this.

* * *

3. Surreal

_"You know that I was hoping that I could leave this star-crossed world behind, but when they cut me open I guess I changed my mind."  
-The Killers, "Spaceman" _

* * *

The drive back to Peter's building was passed in silence. Claire drove, with Noah in the passenger seat picking impatiently at the cast on his wrist. Peter huddled in the back seat, staring out the sleeping city that passed outside the window, trying not to slip back into the shadows of his mind.

When they pulled up outside his building he hesitated, suddenly afraid of the solitude that waited for him inside. "Do you guys... want to come upstairs for awhile?" he asked tentatively. "I could make coffee." He hoped the fact that it was really a desperate plea not to leave him alone didn't show.

After a quick glance at an inscrutible Noah, Claire nodded and they all climbed out of the car. While Noah fed quarters into the meter, Peter led Claire (or maybe it was the other way around?) upstairs. Mechanically, he began making the promised coffee in silence, glad for the atmosphere of composure his niece brought to the apartment.

Eventually she broke the quiet. "Peter," she said, her voice cracking, "I'm so glad you're okay." He glanced at her and realized that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. All his protective instincts kicked in and he opened his arms to her. She dove into his embrace and buried her face in his chest. "How did you survive?" she whispered. "We saw the explosion from below, and none of us thought anything could survive that..."

"Your power," he said, heart clenching. "You saved my life."

"At last something good came out of this," she replied with a tiny smile. Then she took a step back, looking up at him as Noah entered the room. "And Nathan? How did he--?"

Peter sighed. "I made him let me go. I made him drop me. He was far enough away when I--" He closed his eyes, inhaling sharply to ward off a fresh batch of tears.

Noah had entered the apartment silently. "Brave of you," he commented. It sounded odd coming out of his mouth, and Peter realized that it was an awkward attempt to make him feel better.

"Not particularly," he replied. "I just... hope it was enough."

Apparently no one could think of a response to that, so they remained in a strange, companionable quiet. Some minutes later, when a soft chime from the coffee maker indicated that the coffee was ready, Peter broke the stillness to go get the pot from the kitchen. When he came back bearing three scalding mugs, he noticed the other two watching him closely. He chose to ignore it; he had earned their scrutiny.

As Claire took her coffee from him, she frowned pensively. "This is weird," she said. "Four hours ago we were facing the end of the world as we know it--"

"At my hands," Peter interjected bitterly.

She shot him a look to silence him. "--And now we're just sitting around drinking coffee and trying to ignore how awkward and surreal it all is."

Noah smiled sadly at his daughter. "It gets easier after awhile," he promised. "I'll admit, this is the biggest crisis I've ever been involved with personally, but you hear stories..."

Peter stared at him, recalling the shady Company Claire had told him around. "You mean this has happened before?" he demanded.

"What, you think you're the first person to lose control of an unstable ability?" Noah asked, giving him an ironic smirk. "You're not. And you won't be the last."

Oddly, it made him feel better than all of Claire's confidence and Emma's calm support combined. He smiled, and for the first time that night it didn't feel forced, greasy, and unnatural on his face. "That's actually really good to know," he said.

Noah nodded. "About fifteen years ago, we had a little girl in Ohio who blacked out four counties. Electrogenicist. She overloaded and shut down a whole power grid. Set her house on fire as well. Multiple times. And that's just one I've handled personally. Believe me, Peter, not every natural disaster you hear about on the news is actually natural. Hurricanes, earthquakes. Every so often they're the result of someone's power getting out of control... or unleashed intentionally."

"And that's why you do... what you do?" Peter said questioningly.

"_Did_. Not anymore," Noah said firmly. "That electrogenicist? We took her into the Company. Tested her and pushed her to do more until she collapsed from exhaustion, day after day after day. She was eight years old. She was raised to be an agent, and now she is. Not a bad one, either. But she's also a sadistic, delusional sociopath who kills remorselessly and loves torturing other Company prisoners. That's the Company's legacy. Not the lives we saved. The people behind bars with no chance of parole and their powers being tested past the point of human endurance."

By the time he finished speaking, he didn't seem to be aware of them anymore. He was staring at a place on the wall opposite him with a blank, deadly look on his face.

Claire was staring at him with a half-frightened expression on her face, and Peter was pretty sure that he was as well. "That's horrible," she said quietly.

Noah nodded, coming back to himself with ease. "Why do you think I never let them get their hands on you? You would become just like her."

"I'm so sorry, Dad," Claire said quietly.

"That's why we've got to run," he said. "We've got to get away, start a new life somewhere fresh before they can catch up to us. You understand?"

The blonde glanced at Peter, who was staring into his coffee. "What about Peter?" she asked. "What about Nathan?"

Peter smiled at his niece. "I'll be fine. Nathan too," he assured her with more conviction than he really felt. "You're the one with something left to lose."

The reassurance was all she needed, though his last comment made a flicker of concern cross her face. "Okay," she said. Then she turned to Peter. "What about you? What are you going to do, now that we saved the world?"

He shrugged. "I've got some cash saved up, plus what my dad left me when he died, which was actually kind of a lot. Figure I'll just... kick back for awhile, be there for Nathan, try to figure out where the hell to go from here. I mean, I quit my job when this all started anyway, so it's not like I have anything more important to do, short-term."

Claire looked at him with sympathetic eyes. He felt a brief flash of irritation: he didn't deserve her sympathy. "You really believe in this, don't you?" she said wonderingly.

"Yeah, I did," he said. "Now? I don't know."

There was nothing to say to that, so she awkwardly switched topics. "So... what was up with spilling the beans about pretty much everything to the first pretty blonde you come across?" she asked, a hint of teasing in her voice.

Peter glared good-naturedly at her. "I don't know," he said. "I was really freaked, okay? I told her she wouldn't believe me if I told her what happened. But she had pretty much taken care of me through a breakdown, even though I'm a complete stranger. I at least owed her an explanation."

"Wait, you're saying that you told someone you don't know about your powers?" Noah interrupted.

"Yeah," Peter said defensively.

"That was... not a good idea," the older man said.

The empath looked steadily at him. "I wasn't exactly thinking clearly," he pointed out.

"Not an excuse," Noah said.

"Maybe. Look, Emma is probably the only reason I'm not a complete mess right now. I trust her, okay?" Noah raised an eyebrow skeptically, and Peter sighed. "Whatever, man, you've got good reasons not to trust anybody. I don't."

Claire could see that her father was irritable after the hectic events of the last day, and Peter was clearly exhausted, and neither of them was perfectly reasonable at the moment. Fearing an argument, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Did it hurt?" she asked, then immediately wished she could take it back, turning a little pink at a question that even as she was saying it somehow seemed too personal.

Peter was confused, though. "Did what hurt?"

"Exploding," she said abashedly. "I... did it hurt?"

He ran a hand through his hair, letting out a bark of dry, incredulous laughter. "Like nothing you can imagine," he said honestly.

She nodded, sitting back in her seat and staring into her coffee, a light flush of pink spreading across her cheeks. Noah chose that moment to rise to his feet. "Claire, we need to get going. It's nearly dawn, and we need to get going. The Haitian will have freed your mother and Lyle by now, and we're picking them up at an old Company drop-off point in Iowa tomorrow morning. If we're going to make the appointment, we have to leave now." He came around the table and shook Peter's hand firmly. "Peter, thank you."

He turned on his heel and walked out of the apartment, not bothering to make sure Claire was following.

"Where will you go now?" Peter asked.

With a glance at the door as it snicked shut behind her father, Claire bit her lip. "We've talked about it a little, but I'm not really sure. And even if I were... I probably shouldn't say. But..." Suddenly, she remembered something, and her face brightened. "But if you find Molly Walker, she'll be able to loan you a way to find us."

"What?" he asked, completely confused.

Claire smirked at him. "You'll figure it out if you need to," she assured him. "I... I have to go."

She made for the door, but halfway there she stopped and turned to face him. "And Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"You're still totally my hero."

And she turned and followed Noah out the door.

***************

Elle Bishop flounced out through the doors of Mercy Heights Hospital. She approached a white van with the words Primatech Paper Company emblazoned on the side, pulled open the passenger-side door, and bounced into her seat with a heavy sigh. "I couldn't find him!" she exclaimed. "I searched the whole building, but he's not anywhere!"

A bespectacled man in the driver's seat gave her a stern look. "I expected better of you, Elle."

"In my defense, he _can_ turn invisible," the blonde pointed out.

"That is not an excuse," he responded. "There are ways of revealing invisible people. A large electrical charge happens to be one of them."

"So, what, I'm supposed to just go firing off ball lightning in a hospital?" she scoffed. He gave her a withering glare that had her shrinking back in her seat in fear. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she whimpered. "I'll do better next time."

Bob Bishop didn't respond, pressing his lips together in a thin, disappointed line, and turned the key in the ignition. The Primatech van moved away from the hospital.

* * *

**Next time:**

***Peter visits Nathan, and has a visitor of his own. For real this time. Sorry I lied this time around, but the fic would not have been the same without this chapter. Trust me.**


	4. Friends

**A/N-** I've been really crappy at updating my fic lately, haven't I? Blame it on a combination of organic chem and Calculus II. (Official warning: do NOT take Calc II if you can avoid it!!!) But I'm hopefully back with more regular updates now, so... yeah. Varana has been fickle lately. She's very entertained by the Jess side of Milo, and bored with the Peter side. I would like her to stop trying to make up her mind and just walk the middle of the road, but I didn't give her that name for nothing I guess.

(And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back and read the author's note from last chapter!)

* * *

4. Friends

_"How can you say I go about things the wrong way? I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does."_  
_-The Smiths, "How Soon is Now?"_

_

* * *

_Peter entered the hospital room, trying to convince himself that no, his hands were _not_ shaking, but it wasn't doing a lot of good. The ward smelled of antiseptic and the clammy, indefinable smell of illness, and he wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run. It was an atmosphere he had become used to in nursing school, but somehow it felt different knowing that behind the blue and yellow striped curtain, it was his own brother lying in the bed.

"I should warn you, Mr. Petrelli," the attendant who had guided him to the room spoke up. "The fact that he survived the car wreck at all is a miracle, but he's got some pretty severe burns. Seeing him may be a shock."

Dredging up some hidden reserves of courage, Peter nodded, swallowed hard, and pulled back the curtain. The apparition that lay before him came like a punch in the gut. He took in his brother's scarred, blackened skin, bloody, oozing wounds, and the wispy tufts of dark hair clinging resolutely to his scalp. It was enough to make him struggle to breathe. The attendant laid a hand on his elbow, but he shook him off. "I'm good," he said weakly. "Can I... sit with him for awhile?"

The man nodded. "Alright. I wouldn't expect him to wake up, though. He's under very heavy sedation, both for the pain and to keep his condition stable while his body starts the healing process."

"I know that," Peter said, slightly irritated. He probably had more medical training than this man, and certainly didn't need that kind of thing explained to him.

The attendant gave him a sympathetic look, then left him to the silence of the hospital room and the sight of his brother's half-dead body. Peter sank into a chair at his brother's bedside, mostly because he wasn't sure his suddenly boneless legs would support him any longer. He kept his eyes locked on Nathan's face.

How long he sat there, he wasn't sure, but it must have been several hours before a hand descended on his shoulder. He glanced up and was surprised to see Emma, of all people, looking down at him.

"How are you?" she asked.

Peter shrugged. "Doing okay. Better, I think. No impending meltdowns, so that's an improvement."

The corner of her lip twitched in something suspiciously like the beginnings of a smile. "And your brother? He's...?"

"He's gonna pull through. He's... well, you can see for yourself." He gestured at Nathan's mangled face and as Emma followed the motion with her eyes, he could see her wince. "But he's alive, right? That's the important thing. The rest we'll just have to figure out." Then he let out a bark of sober laughter. "Oh, who am I kidding? Even I'm not that optimistic. He's in real bad shape. At best he's going to be wheelchair bound for the rest of his life, odds are high he'll need an oxygen tank to breathe... and it's all my fault."

Emma shook her head. "Don't start that again! I told you last night, you did everything possible to prevent this." She took his hand impulsively and pulled insistently to get him to his feet. "You shouldn't be sitting here, beating yourself up over this. Come on, you can come back later."

After debating for a moment and glancing one last time at Nathan, Peter decided that it wasn't doing anyone any good to just stare at Nathan while he was unconscious. He nodded, and followed Emma out of the hospital ward. She led him down the hallway and into the rec room, settling herself on the piano bench and pulling him down beside her.

"Thanks," Peter told her.

She nodded. "So, how's your niece? Claire?"

"On the run for her life." He shrugged. "Same old, same old, it looks like."

Emma winced. "I can't imagine what it must be like. Always afraid..."

"It's not all bad," Peter told her, and suddenly realized that it was true. He had been so caught up in saving the world that he had forgotten the simple things that came with this overhaul in his life. "There are high points, believe me. Flying is... magic."

"I'd think so," she agreed. _I always wondered what it would be like to fly,_ she thought, and Peter didn't even consciously realize it had been inside her head.

"Maybe I could take you up sometime, once I'm a little more sure of myself."

She looked startled. "Did I... say that out loud?"

Peter frowned to himself. "No. I think I read your mind. Sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"That's okay," she assured him. "Just try not to do it anymore."

That made sense to Peter. Nobody liked having their heads picked through, and Emma had struck him from the start (once he had been sensate enough to pay attention) as a very closed, private person, and he couldn't imagine her wanting anyone getting a glimpse of her innermost thoughts.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. "Oh god, Parkman!" he exclaimed.

"What?"

"Matt Parkman! He's the cop I got--"

"Got the telepathy from," Emma finished his sentence. Peter vaguely noticed that it was the second time over the course of their acquaintance that she had done so, and he thought idly that Emma was a very different kind of mind-reader. However, he was too distracted by his sudden realization to pay attention to that.

He nodded. "He got shot last night trying to save my life. I was a little distracted, but he was in bad shape. I've got to find him, I've got to make sure he'll pull through..."

Emma frowned, then stood up decisively. "I might be able to help."

Wordlessly, he followed her back to the file room, beginning to feel like Emma, in her own quiet way, was something of a force of nature. She all but threw herself into the desk chair and began typing single-mindedly into her computer, giving him a chance to study her. Her eyes were flicking quickly across the screen, and there was an air of determination about her. A few locks of golden hair had fallen free from her loose ponytail and were falling across her forehead.

Peter was confounded by her. She was a virtual stranger to him, and yet he felt as comfortable with her as if he'd known her for years. Maybe the emotional charge of the last few days had something to do with that, maybe not. Either way, as worried as he was about Nathan and as completely lost as he was feeling, somehow he had fixated on her as his anchor. And if he was completely honest with himself, she was very attractive to him, as well.

That felt wrong, somehow. On a detached, clinical level, he knew that he was in a very rough, transitional point in his life, and he didn't need to get too attached to chance acquaintances. On a more emotional level, he felt that, even though it _felt_ like a lifetime since he had cradled Simone's cooling body in his arms, it was really only a few weeks. Moving on too soon would be a betrayal.

Even so, though, he found himself thinking that he liked Emma. A lot.

Regardless, it didn't feel right even asking her to lunch. Everything was just so _complicated_... No, he wouldn't do anything about it. He needed a friend right now more than he needed a complication. Though, even now he thought about that, he couldn't help but wonder just how Emma saw _him_. He had just sort of burst into her life with all his baggage and his insanely strange "adventures"; he wouldn't blame her the least little bit if she just wished he'd go away. Though, then again, she had sought him out today...

"Done!" Emma announced, interrupting his train of thought.

"What?" Peter asked, confused.

She pointed at the screen. "I've got a lot of access from here- I checked the reports from every ambulance service in Greater Manhattan. At five minutes to one this morning, a Matthew Parkman was taken from the Kirby Building in Midtown to Roosevelt Memorial Hospital in serious condition. It says here that there a man named Daniel Hawkins was brought in on the same call with trauma resulting from a bullet wound to the abdomen."

He stared at her. "You're good," he said, a little awed. "Thank you."

"It's nothing," she replied, looking a little uncomfortable with his praise.

"I, um..."

Emma nodded. "You should go. Make sure your friend is okay. If you want, I could check in on your brother while you're gone."

Peter smiled in gratitude and took his leave.

* * *

She wasn't supposed to be here. She was supposed to be up on Level 2, reading the dossiers for her next assignment, but instead, she was down here on Level 3 (medical, that was), wandering around with no real clue of why. Sometimes she did that. Sometimes she just drifted around the New York chapter of Primatech, not sure where she was going or why she was going there, just certain that she'd end up somewhere eventually. She'd done that every so often since she was eight and first arrived at the Company facility. It turned up interesting things.

Today was no exception. A guttural groaning noise caught her sensitive ears, and she whipped around and marched back the way she'd come.

It took only a minute for Elle to locate the source of the sound. Level 3 was set up much like the prison ward down on Level 5, but each cell was equipped with surgical equipment and assorted medical paraphernalia. Most of the little rooms were unoccupied, but one was filled with a bevy of doctors and Company personnel standing by watching. Despite the raised position of the viewing area outside the cells, Elle was still unable to see around the pack of bodies to see who they were working on.

At that moment, the door to the cell swung open and a brunette sauntered out, cockiness radiating from her, complete with pleated miniskirt and leather knee-length boots, the laces soaked in blood.

"Candice," Elle said hostilely.

"Elle," Candice replied, mimicking her coworker's icy tone.

"Shame about the boots," the electrogenecist said condescendingly. "They might have to be burned."

Candice shot her a venomous glare and marched away, tossing her chocolate-colored locks over her shoulder derisively. Elle made a mental note to kill her in her sleep, if she could figure out how to get away with it. Then she turned back to the window.

A gap appeared in the press of people inside, and for just a moment the face of the man they were attending came into her line of view. Then the gap closed and he was gone. But Elle was left a little breathless.

"Gabriel..." she whispered.

* * *

**A/N-** And that's that, folks! New chapter hopefully sooner than this last. In the meantime, I'll try to get some stuff up for my Gilmorefic and for SS. Thanks for your patience, it's just that finals have been approaching too fast and all...


End file.
